Evie Allen worked at Illinois news station WSIL TV 3 as a reporter and anchor for thirteen years. Now, she's joined the KOMU 8 news team as the station's new senior anchor.
KBIA's Shea Baechle sat down with Allen to talk about her career and her plans in Columbia.
TRANSCRIPT:
Allen: Okay, so I am currently and newly the senior, I guess, evening anchor at KOMU 8 News here in Colombia.
Baechle: How did you get to KOMU? Because I've heard the journey here was International.
Allen: Okay, so in 2000, I moved with my entire family to New Zealand. So we did a lot of ministry work there with my parents and met a lot of people who also joined us in ministry work, creating a ministry under good fight of faith. And then I went to school, back to school, technically, because I started college before we moved and I was 19 when we moved, and I had done a semester or two at junior college at Logan there and Carterville in Southern Illinois. What I did was I kind of evaluated myself from like it just kind of looking at what are my strengths, what are my weaknesses, and I've traveled from country to country. My parents are bishops. So I was used to talking to people, learning their stories, learning a lot about them, just because I've been culturally opened up to a lot of cultures and different things. So I thought, well, the best way to do that is to probably go into TV. So that's how I ended up in news. They had a really, really fantastic program. So I worked at the station there on campus and then worked at the station in Carterville, as well.
Baechle: How long were you there and was the position the same?
Allen: Nope. So going into my senior year, we applied for one internship, paid internship, for all students and I got it, thank God and they sent me to Carterville where WSILTV 3 is ABC station, there at home. And they hired me on after my summer internship. So I was really happy and overwhelmed because I had a job on campus. I had a full time student thing going on all those credit hours. And I had a job at a real TV station. And I stayed there till I came here. So 13 years at WSIL and I was an AP associate producer, reporter and anchor so I did just about everything that I wanted to learn just about everything while I could. But my favorite I would say, which I'm currently not doing now, but it is my favorite overall. And I'll tell you why is is reporting. I do feel like reporters are, if not the most hardest working people, they're at a new station some of the most hardest. So there's a lot of grind with being a reporter. But the rewarding part is is you learned so much, and you meet new people. And it's like becoming an expert on something in a short amount of time, what somebody took years to learn. I had, you know, may have three for five hours. It's a hard working job, it's a grind, a lot of people think, Oh, you're in TV, it's glamorous. It's not it's it's a real job. It's a real grown up job. And you can make a difference doing it with people's lives.
Baechle: What do we have to look forward to in the future with Evie Allen on KOMU 8?
Allen: Well, definitely I will be doing some reporting. And I do look forward to that. Getting to know the area and the people and being out. I love community events. I'm a big community woman. So I will be adding a lot of events. So if people want to send their invites, I would love to be there. So lots of great things, wonderful stories and just really becoming a Columbia, Missouri woman.
